Thursday, March 24, 2011

Haggling 201

Well, the Haggling 101 post was such a big hit I thought I'd share some advanced pointers for those of you on the accelerated path. Or one more pointer, anyway:

HAGGLE DON'T: Try to De-Value the item in hopes of getting it ridiculously cheap. "I'd need to spray paint it to cover up all of this rust." Ummm, rust is actually a selling point for some people, particularly in the area of garden items; So No, I can't sell it to you for half price. "It needs an awful lot of work." I can appreciate that you might want to restore it to pristine original condition, but I can guarantee there are plenty of people that would snap up this Hoosier cabinet at this price and slap it into their kitchen as is, loving every single character flaw so again, I can't give you $100 off of this $199 item.

I don't mean to sound flippant in my responses to these people, but really, it's so frustrating. With almost 5 years under our belt here at Salvage Chic, we know our price points. We don't have a huge mark-up but we make our money on volume, high turnover keeps our customers coming back. Unfortunately the secondhand market is associated with haggling, but we're not at a yard sale here. Imagine if someone came into your workplace and said "Hey, how about you take a 20% cut in pay today?" And then handed you a credit card so it was actually closer to 25%. YAY.

Things I would never be cheeky enough to try: At my hairdresser's "Hey, I love this cut & color, but not at the $85 price point you're trying to charge me. I'll give you $60." Or the mechanic: "Awesome oil change, thanks, but it's not really worth $35 to me, I'll give you $20." And my ever favorite, at CVS: "I'll give you $1.50 CASH for this Chapstick, $2.99 is pretty insane since it's not even cherry flavor."

2 comments:

Ditto above comment! I had a guy email me the other day and ask if I was "open" to discussing price on an item I'd just relisted. Since it has been in my shop awhile I said just that "It's been in my shop awhile, I could sell it for $20." (It is listed at $24). He then asks if that includes shipping and I said, no, I can reduce the shirt price. He then replies "So, can we settle at $22 for everything?" to which I never replied. It's like dude, usually, I do not discount ANYTHING, I immediately offered you a discount, why are you continuing this? Enough. The. End.

Also, you should go into Boston Interiors (Claudia knows why I am picking on them) and say "This furniture is too squeaky new and icky, I'll have to rough it up at home, can you discount it a bit?"